Sunday, April 23, 2017

The Price of Perfection

It's no big secret that I am a perfectionist. I'm driven by results and I'm stubborn until I get it. I get complimented many a times for being a dedicated and hard-working person.

But is perfectionism good?

To answer this question, I felt it is pertinent to analyse the reasons that watered this certain characteristic in me. I feel our education system has made me ruthlessly competitive. Over the years, the social approval that came associated with academic success fueled my desire to study hard. I enjoyed the process and everything was rosy and nice.

However this came with its drawbacks that I have been noticing only lately. This attitude came with subtle messages that I did not realize even existed. It has sowed tendrils of doubt and a deep fear of failure. I treated failure as an obstacle that is to be quickly crossed by redoubling effort. It had strongly bound my happiness to quantifiable success. If not quantifiable, at least by the approval of others.

There came a moment in my life where the Universe I carefully constructed with hard work came crashing down like a pack of cards. The societal approval disappeared, the results evaporated and all my efforts were in vain. I could feel the haunting fear in the pit of my tummy that failure was imminent. I increased my efforts so much that it bordered on desperation. I learned later that there is some wisdom in the phrase "haste makes waste".

Soon, in every facet of my life I was facing failure, be it personal or professional. As far as the eye could see, there was only darkness. Who am I, if not for my results? What do I believe in?

I was struck by an identity crisis so clear that I felt like a bleak helpless baby once again.

Thankfully, in the 21st century, every individual has a lot of tools to help themselves. I'm grateful to my friends, family and the Internet for pulling me through. I don't see the light yet but I feel I'm getting there.

Part of the healing comes with the acceptance. This blog post is my way of accepting my flaws and working with them.

Perfectionism is not bad as such. Without it, I would not be where I am today. However, when it developed low self-esteem and the craving for validation due to external mismatches of expectation, it became a monster that devoured me.

So next time I see failure approaching me, I will not bulldoze it with hard work. I will face it, bite the bullet and learn from it. My life is not a statistic. When life is firing cannon balls at me, it's better to build an armour of self love than let it batter my soul.

Dedicated to every lip biting perfectionist out there - you are enough :)

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